Social media giants offer a ‘safe space for racists’ – report

Author Moonshot.news

Published on: 02/08/2021

Social media giants have largely failed to tackle antisemitism and enforce their own community guidelines against hate speech, offering as a result a ‘safe space for racists,’ according to a new report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).

The five biggest social media platforms took no action on 84% of posts containing antisemitic conspiracies, extremism and abuse reported to them using their own tools for reporting malignant content – despite promises to crack down on anti-Jewish hatred – the UK/US non-profit organisation says in its report entitled ‘Failure to Protect’.

CCDH researchers collected and reported 714 posts containing anti-Jewish hatred. Collectively, they had been viewed at least 7.3 million times. Posts were collected from Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter & YouTube between May-June.

Key Findings

• 84% of posts containing anti-Jewish hatred were not acted upon by social media companies. Facebook performed worst, failing to act on 89%, despite announcing new rules to tackle the problem.
• Platforms fail to act on 89% of antisemitic conspiracy theories about 9/11, the Covid pandemic and Jewish control of world affairs.
• Extremist anti-Jewish hate is not acted on: platforms failed to act on 80% of posts containing Holocaust denial, 74% of posts alleging the blood libel, 70% of racist caricatures of Jewish people and 70% of neo-Nazi posts.
• Instagram, TikTok and Twitter allow hashtags used for antisemitic content such as #rothschild, #fakejews and #killthejews that were used in posts identified by the report that gained over 3.3 million impressions.
• TikTok removes just 5% of accounts that directly racially abuse Jewish users, for example by sending them messages denying the Holocaust.
• Earlier reports by CCDH show platforms have similarly failed to act on dangerous Covid and vaccine misinformation reported by users.

The report shows that, despite pledges to fight hate speech, social media giants’ efforts to tackle antisemitism across their platforms have proved inadequate. Facebook was the worst offender, acting on just 10.9% of posts, despite introducing tougher guidelines on antisemitic content last year.